Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Academic Publisher Elsevier Looking for More Revenue in Odd Places

Academic publisher Elsevier, not content with raking in the money from all the expensive academic journals they print, is now following in the footsteps of illustrious organizations such as the American Biographical Institute: when your article gets published, they are offering wooden plaques celebrating the glorious occasion.

And indeed, you can find there a wide variety of choices to "commemorate" your publication, including:

- copy of the journal issue in which your article appears;- "A customized full-color poster commemorating the publication of your article, featuring the article first page and a personalized reference."- a "Certificate of Publication" which is "delivered ready to display in a high-quality frame, dark brown wood with gold trim."- "A full-color, 16.5" x 23.4" sized poster of the cover of the issue in which your article appears, displaying a personalized reference to your publication."

One of my friends published an article in Nature, but was told by his professor that he could not put these results in his PhD-thesis (because they were too far away from his actual research topic). He made a shirt with "I published in Nature and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" and gave talks about his work in that. Which was rather funny.